Snapchat plans to attract older audience to drive ad business according to leaked memo

Snap is apparently planning to reposition its Snapchat app to attract a larger audience and grow profitability by 2019. According to a leaked memo obtained by Cheddar, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel appealed to the company’s employees to help realign the firm’s goals.

The memo revealed that Snapchat is currently reconsidering the design of its Discover section. Snap plans to monetise content produced by influencers across Discover.

However, in order to drive growth, Spiegel admitted that older users were vital as they “generate higher average revenue per user”.

Appealing to an older audience may however present a difficult challenge since Snapchat is known for its predominantly teenage user base. A shift toward an older user base could drive away teen users to explore alternatives in a similar fashion as it has happened across Facebook.

Spiegel said that one way to attract a more mature audience was to focus on Snapchat as a means to communicate faster.

Spiegel further admitted that Snapchat’s redesign back in 2017 may have been a little “rushed” and caused more problems than it solved.

“The biggest mistake we made with our redesign was compromising our core product value of being the fastest way to communicate. Our redesigned algorithm Friend Feed made it hard to find the right people to talk to, and moving too quickly meant that we didn’t have time to optimise the Friend Feed for fast performance. We slowed down our product and eroded our core product value,” he wrote in the memo.